Tom (Comedian): Can you tell me where there’s a fire-insurance office?

Dick (Straight): Why, are you going to insure your property?

Tom: Well, not exactly; but my boss says he’s going to fire me, and I want to see if I can’t get protection from the fire.

Dick: Well, why don’t you attend to business? Get around bright and early in the morning.

Tom: I would, only my watch stopped this morning.

Dick: What was the matter with it?

Tom: A bedbug got between the ticks.

Dick: O, quit your kidding! I want to ask you something serious—

Tom: I don’t get paid until Saturday.

Dick: O, I don’t want money. I have a plenty of that.

Tom: My goodness! How long since?

Dick: I want you to understand that I am very well off.

Tom: Yes; you’re away off. (Taps forehead.)

Dick: That’ll do you!

Tom: But I knew the time when a bean sandwich looked like a week’s board to you.

Dick: Well, you needn’t tell everybody here about it—that’s my misfortune.

Tom: I won’t say a word. But if you don’t behave I’ll tell everybody here that I loaned you a shirt, till you get yours from the laundry—

Dick: Say, please keep—

Tom: O, I won’t breathe it, don’t worry; and I won’t say a word about you wearing my collar and tie, either—

Dick (angrily): See here—

Tom: O, shavings! Don’t get angry!

Dick: Well, then, listen and be serious. I have written a play—

Tom: Thirty days and costs.

Dick (sarcastically): I suppose you think you could write one.

Tom: I did write one; I wrote a melodrama.

Dick: A melodrama, eh? Was anybody killed?

Tom: No; the audience yelled for the author, but I wouldn’t come out.

Dick: Ha! Ha! It’s a good thing that you didn’t. Now in my first act—

Tom: Say, did you ever hear the story about my coal-bin?

Dick: No; is it a good one?

Tom: No; there’s nothing in it.

Dick: O, behave! In my first act I—

Tom: Say, a fellow asked me to-day if he would have to take a course in a barber-school before he could shave ice at a soda-water counter.

Dick: O, behave! In the first act I have introduced a—

Tom: A piece of cheese.

Dick: Yes; a piece of cheese—no; nothing of the sort. The idea!

Tom: What’s the best way to catch a rat?

Dick: I suppose there are several ways. What is the best way to catch a rat?

Tom: Crawl in a pantry and smell like a piece of cheese.

Dick: Will you behave? I heard you had been speculating on the board of trade?

Tom: Yes; I was a speculator.

Dick: What were you, a bull or a bear?

Tom: Neither. They made a monkey out of me.

Dick: Serves you right! In the first act—

Tom: Say, are you still in the first act?

Dick: Certainly. Why don’t you let me go on?

Tom: O, go on; I don’t care what happens.

Dick: Well, in the first act, I have written—

Tom: You have written home for money.

Dick: Yes, I have written home—no, nothing of the sort.

Tom: Not guilty?

Dick: Not guilty; my folks haven’t seen my face in four months.

Tom: My goodness! Why don’t you wash it?

Dick: Now, stop it, I tell you! In the first act—

Tom: Why is a cascaret?

Dick: Why is a cascaret what?

Tom: Because it works while you sleep.

Dick: For goodness sake! is that a joke?

Tom: I should say so. It’s one of the best I ever traveled with.

Dick: Then you don’t travel with much, do you?

Tom: No; I generally travel with you.

Dick: O, behave, you rascal!

Tom: Say, do you know what?

Dick: No; what?

Tom: What is worse than a giraffe with a sore throat?

Dick: Why, I can’t imagine anything worse. What is worse?

Tom: A centipede with the chilblains.

Dick: I wish you’d behave! I was going by your house yesterday, and I saw your sister looking out of the window; but I didn’t see any of the rest of the family—

Tom: Well, sister is the only one that’s working, and she looks out for us all.

Dick: Behave! Behave! Is your sister a blonde?

Tom: No, but she’s dyeing to be one. (Slaps himself on the wrist.) Behave! how dare you!

Dick: Say, are you going to listen to me?

Tom: Certainly.

Dick: Well, in the first act the villain comes on and strikes the heroine—

Tom: For ten cents to buy an automobile.

Dick: Yes, for ten cents to buy an auto—no, no, he strikes her—

Tom: Why, he must belong to the union, then?

Dick: Certainly, he does—no, he doesn’t either. The idea!

Tom: If two peaches make a date, and two dates make a pair, what do apples make?

Dick: Why, apples make cider, of course.

Tom: And Pears make soap, is it?

Dick: Is it! You talk like a cake of yeast.

Tom: Sure. You see I always rise when I talk. Ha, Ha!

Dick: What are you laughing at?

Tom: That joke. I thought of it so quick. It must be quick-rising yeast, are they?

Dick: Are they! There you go again.

Tom: Did you hear about it?

Dick: Hear about what?

Tom: My sister eloped yesterday.

Dick: Is that so?

Tom: Yes, a horse ran away with her.

Dick: O, behave! That reminds me. When are you going to get married?

Tom: Hush! Can you keep a secret?

Dick: Sure.

Tom: I’m married.

Dick: Why, that’s news to me. How long have you been married?

Tom: Six months.

Dick: Six months, eh? And I suppose you think your wife is an angel?

Tom: No, not quite—but I have hopes.

Dick: O, behave! You know in the first act—

Tom: You know when I asked my wife’s father to marry his daughter, I said: “I love your daughter and I can’t live without her.”

Dick: Very noble of you. And what did the old gentleman say?

Tom: He says: “Take her, young man; I can’t live with her.”

Dick: Ha, ha! And you took her?

Tom: I did. I took her for better or worse, and got the worst of it.

Dick: Too bad! But who gave the bride away?

Tom: Her little brother.

Dick: Her little brother? I never heard of such a thing. The father usually gives the bride away.

Tom: The old man never said a word. It was her little angel-faced brother. He told everybody that she had a cork leg. It was an awful case of give away.

Dick: Then I suppose you took a bridal tour?

Tom: No; I felt more like taking an ax to her.

Dick: Why, that, wouldn’t be very nice—to take an ax to her.

Tom: I would, only she began to sing “O, Woodman, Spare that Tree.”

Dick: O, behave!

Tom: You know my wife used to be a “summer girl.”

Dick: And what is a “summer girl?”

Tom: A “summer girl” is a rack to stretch shirt-waists on; inside is a compartment for lobster salad, chop suey and ice cream; while outside is an attachment for diamond rings.

Dick: A very good definition, my boy. I suppose you hung a diamond ring on the outside?

Tom: No; I hung up my watch on the inside of a pawnshop.

Dick: Well, don’t worry—a man should be satisfied with what he has.

Tom: O, I’m satisfied with what I have. It’s what I haven’t got that causes most of my dissatisfaction.

Dick: You look well. That ought to help some.

Tom: I just returned from taking a water cure.

Dick: Did you derive any benefit from the water?

Tom: I don’t know. You see the water was in a well, and I think the exercise I got going to the well helped me.

Dick: Why, was the well a long way off?

Tom: Yes; you see I was far from well.

Dick: O, behave! In the first act—

Tom: Is your play funny?

Dick: Yes; every hearty laugh adds a day to a person’s life, you know.

Tom: I don’t believe it.

Dick: Why not?

Tom: I laughed yesterday when a guy slipped on a banana peel, and I’ll bet he kicked ten days off of my life, all right.

Dick: Well, you only got what was coming to you. Now the first act—

Tom: Here’s a funny thing.

Dick: What’s that?

Tom: Why, night falls but it doesn’t break.

Dick: Well, what, of it?

Tom: O, nothing, except that day breaks but it doesn’t fall.

Dick: O, behave!

Tom: My landlady forgot this morning and helped me to a second piece of steak.

Dick: That was luck.

Tom: Yes, tough luck.

Dick: O, behave! I see that Kid McCoy says he’s willing to meet any man in the world for any amount of money.

Tom: So am I.

Dick: So are you? Why, the idea! Ha, ha! That makes me laugh.

Tom: Laugh away; but I’ll meet any man in the world for any amount of money, any old time.

Dick: You will?

Tom: Yes, I will. J. P. Morgan preferred.

Dick: Good! You’re all right. Well, in the first act the heroine is discovered asleep in a snow-bank.

Tom: Then she must have cold feet.

Dick: Yes, she has cold—no, she hasn’t got cold feet.

Tom: O, she has a hot-water bag on her feet?

Dick: Yes, she has, of course—no, she hasn’t either. The heroine is discovered asleep in a snow-bank and the villain comes on and—

Tom: And she wakes up and gives him the “frozen face.”

Dick: Yes, now you’ve got it—O, behave!

Tom: Say, my old maid sister found a man under her bed last night.

Dick: Is that so? What did she do, send for a policeman?

Tom: No; she sent for a minister.

Dick: O, behave!

Tom: I ain’t going to church any more.

Dick: Not going to church? Why, what’s the reason?

Tom: I’m sore at the minister.

Dick: What about?

Tom: When my brother died the minister said he had gone to join the great majority.

Dick: Well, what’s wrong with that? That’s simply an expression: “Gone to join the great majority.”

Tom: Yes, but two weeks ago he said that more people went down below than there were up above. Wouldn’t that jingle your small change?

Dick: I understand your brother was a hard drinker?

Tom: Yes; his habits were a little moist.

Dick: Moist?

Tom: Yes, he kept pretty well soaked.

Dick: The idea! In the first—

Tom: Gee! but my father was late in getting home last night.

Dick: What made him late?

Tom: The trolley-car kept stopping every two minutes.

Dick: Every two minutes?

Tom: Yes, it would stop every two minutes and then wait one minute before starting again.

Dick: Wasn’t your father angry at the waits?

Tom: No, they were only short waits and he’s used to short weights—he’s in the coal business.

Dick: O, behave!

Tom: If you ever do what you did last night I’ll never speak to you again.

Dick: What did I do?

Tom: I met you last night just as I was coming in the hotel.

Dick: Yes; what of it?

Tom: You were going out of the hotel when I was coming in, and you insulted me.

Dick: Insulted you? How did I insult you?

Tom: You were singing a song.

Dick: Well, what of it? There’s no harm in that. What song was I singing?

Tom: “All Going Out; Nothin’ comin’ in.”

Dick: O, behave!